The Medieval Hospital

Nicole R. Rice is professor of English at St. John's University, author of a number of books and essays, and co-author of The Civic Cycles: Artisan Drama and Identity in Premodern England (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015).

List of Figures Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: English Hospitals as Spiritual, Medical, and Literary Communities 1. St. Leonard's Hospital, Civic Drama, and Women's Devotion 2. Corruption and Purification at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London: The Book of the Foundation and John Mirfield's Compilations 3. Lay Reading in St. Bartholomew's Hospital Close: John Shirley's Final Anthology 4. Collaborative Devotional Reading at St. Bartholomew's and St. Mark's 5. Poverty, Charity, and Poetry: Critique and Reform Before the Dissolution 6. Dissolution, Disappearance and Refoundation: Textual Strategies of Reconstitution Epilogue: Rites for the Dead and the End of Purgatory, 1540-52 Bibliography

"In this pathbreaking study, Nicole Rice excavates the urban hospital's contributions to literary and performative cultures in medieval England. This book merits the attention of everyone interested in the processes of loss, negotiation, and reinvention that mark the relationship of medieval and early modern in English culture and history." -Theresa Coletti, author of Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints "In its study of these medical/spiritual institutions and individuals, The Medieval Hospital offers a perspective not previously employed and thus makes an important contribution to the history of reading." -Mary C. Erler, author of Reading and Writing during the Dissolution "Rice's sources are wide-ranging in genre, form, and content, as befits the institutional motility that is her central concern. The result is a richly illuminating and meticulously researched study that will be of great interest to general readers and specialists alike."-The Review of English Studies "In this magisterial new book, Nicole Rice musters a wealth of interdisciplinary expertise in order to establish the 'literary-cultural function' of the medieval hospital, a surprisingly robust and prolific engine of textual production and practice."-Studies in the Age of Chaucer "In a masterful study of the inner workings of hospital reading communities and their influence on the social environments around them, Rice provides a view of a literary culture rarely seen; she introduces us to members of the community whose names we may never have heard before; but most importantly...she provides evidence for literary practices that demonstrate the core principles of premodern healthcare-support for the poor and disenfranchised as well as care for both body and soul through reading, writing, copying, compiling, and conversing about a diverse collection of stimulating texts." -Speculum "Remarkably written and researched and refreshingly argued, The Medieval Hospital should be the model to which hospital and literary historians turn." -Isis